I've read two comments. The authors of them seem to think you are being too nice to businesses. I applaud your kindness to those who turn down contract work on religious grounds. If you sat down in a restaurant (non-contract business) and it became known to the owner that you were gay and he asked you to leave, I wouldn't be as kind as you seem to be. As one commentator pointed out, if you are in business to serve the public, you should do so. If you are being contracted to work for specific individuals, I could support your kindness. But I don't really have much sympathy for those of my "straight" fellow American that would give you even this small slight. I'm not very religious (an understatement) but should I use my distaste for all the things that have come to light as having happening in the Catholic church in the last thirty years, give me grounds to refuse association with Catholics because I can't stand their breed of religion. I'm nicer to them than the baker and photographer are to gays. I think common decency and politeness are a good policy. Your over the top concern for their rights is to your great credit. You are a wonderful citizen.

I don't agree, simply because this falls into a very clear area where I disagree with libertarians. The fact of the matter is that a business is not the same thing as the person running it. A business is not personal property in the same way a pair of shoes is, and should never be considered synonymous with a person; a business is a public and contractual arrangement with society to provide goods and services. We cannot regulate people or what they own and directly control - their own opinions included. The difference with the Arizona law was that it tried to extend a personal protection that ought to remain to companies which are a whole different can of worms. Companies have some rights but as an arrangement with society that gives them privileges separate from those of their owners, they also have obligations.

We don't allow discriminatory hiring practices from private employers. We criminalize segregation in private businesses. We impose a whole variety of regulations on businesses that would never fly were we to apply them to people. That's because the rights of individuals are distinct from the rights of businesses they might own.

Libertarians in the past have attempted to argue with me that racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted businesses should be allowed for reasons of personal liberty. Where a person is self-employed, is the sole representative and sole employee of a business, I think there is an argument to be made. All other times I think this assumes a connection between an owner and a company that exists only in a libertarian's idealized version of how society should work, and not in how it actually does.

If a restaurant or a hotel refused to serve a gay person, I'd consider it as bad as racism. Because it is.

However, this is not the case we're discussing. People do not want to take pictures of gay marriages not because those people are gay. I am sure these same photographers would have no problems taking pictures of the same gay men if they were marrying women in a religious ceremony (note this is not the same as changing sexual orientation, a gay person doesn't have to become straight to marry a woman).

So -> the fact that a person is gay is not the issue like it was with Blacks. Blacks were denied service simply in virtue of being Black. Quite obviously, this is not the same thing. It's the act of marriage that is the problem.

I do completely understand the objections raised on the other side. I wish they'd seriously consider "our" side as well.

I've said this before-- we need a Constitutional amendment against organized morality of all sorts. I see little to choose from between church moralizing and liberal moralizing. For this reason I'm voting Republican from now on.

"Racism is baked into America's DNA."

Racism is baked into human DNA. It's not American just because we have the societal wealth to examine and try to deal with it.

"In 1993 I could not have imagined that we would be having a conversation about whether Christian vendors ought to be allowed to refuse to participate in gay weddings, .."
The problem with this debate is that past racism such as the laws forbidding inter-racial marriage were predicated on what was then accepted Christian doctrine. It was believed that blacks were descendants of Noah's son Ham whom he cursed with the result that Ham's descendents were to be servants in perpetuity and while Jesus did die to save them too, they were not equals with the other descendants of Noah. Combine that with the fact that the Bible does not condemn slavery and you can see how white slave owners had by their lights a clear conscience. My fundamentalist grandmother believed this firmly until the day she died. Rightly this is doctrine now considered as nonsense and the law would give short shrift to the idea that any Christian could demand an exception to be allowed to be a racist. Plus while religious belief is now correctly seen as a private matter, it is accepted that it does not trump the wider public sphere in which no belief system has special rights and that includes the right to impose its view of what marriage means. The only real argument against same sex relationships and marriage is a religious one and while consenting adults can get together and form a church and make their own rules for those who join that church, they cannot impose their views in the wider public sector on all others. So if in the public square you offer a commercial service (such as a wedding photographer), or perform a state duty (such as being a clerk at a marriage registry), then you cannot discriminate.

It really is amazing to watch the right-wing in a coordinated attack. A dozen conservative pundits parroting the same lines, the same arguments, the very same reference to Laycock and others.

SSM proponents are being so mean. The broadly written AZ law didn't really do anything. All those poor bakers and photographers, all of them referred to as individuals when it was their businesses that were fined (no one was sued).

No, it's not. There is a massive difference between a member of the cultural majority being forced to treat a minority like the human beings they are, and forcing minorities to basically starve because of your religiously motivated bigotry refusing to treat them with any level of dignity (even as your religion commands you to treat them thusly; my fellow Christians are good at ignoring Christ's commands).

Only a fool could think so. Jim Crow was society-wide. This is only individuals. And freedom of association, which is specifically protected in the Constitution, implies the freedom not to associate-- which is what you call discrimination. You've burned out "racism" as a term your targets care about much-- care to try for "discrimination"? Liberty is far better than anything-- ANYTHING-- you could offer in its place.

There was a time when liberals supported what Arizona was trying to do as expanding personal liberties and conservatives opposed it as destructive to the common good.

"We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate....

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs. The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities....

If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax. The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief....

Any society adopting such a system would be courting anarchy, but that danger increases in direct proportion to the society's diversity of religious beliefs, and its determination to coerce or suppress none of them. Precisely because "we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference," and precisely because we value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not protect an interest of the highest order. The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind -- ranging from compulsory military service to the payment of taxes to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, compulsory vaccination laws, drug laws, and traffic laws; to social welfare legislation such as minimum wage laws, child labor laws, animal cruelty laws, environmental protection laws, and laws providing for equality of opportunity for the races."

And there was a time when conservatives used religion to justify racism.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
-- Judge John Bazille, 1963, in the lead-up to Loving vs. Virginia.

It's better to have once believed something awful and no longer believe it, than to believe something awful and cling to it in spite of evidence that it is wrong and harmful to others.

There's nothing noble going on here anywhere. When their views were in the minority, liberals championed freedom of conscience and conservatives championed the common good. Today, with liberal views on gay rights enjoying majority support, liberals couldn't care less about freedom of conscience and conservatives are suddenly all about it.

Essentially, the author supports a double standard (a very crude summary would be "it is okay for businesses to discriminate against gay people but not against black people") by pointing to the hysterical attitude of the USA towards racism.

But if the case against affirmative action (that has been covered by The Economist) is any indicator, there is growing disagreement that it "remains necessary to go further than formal equality".
Yes, slavery is a cruel, shameful taint on mankind's history. But since then the Civil Rights movement won and a black President has been elected. I see no reason to refuse to heal the trauma of racial oppression.

Formal equality ought to be enough for everyone.

Intriguingly, the author seems to consider that discrimination is alright with certain exceptions. I don't think it should ever be alright.

So you would force priests to celebrate gay marriages? I'm pretty sure WW thinks it wrong to discriminate against gay couples but he thinks it a greater wrong to force people to do business that violates their consciences.

Forcing priests to celebrate gay weddings is very different from forcing businesses to treat customers equally. A customer is a customer, and a member of a religious group is another thing, altogether. The latter's views may include misogyny, monogamous sex, etc. but citizens of free countries should be treated as first-class citizens despite adhering or not to religious precepts pertaining to one's private life. This is all about whether certain segments of the population have reached equal status or not--nothing more hypocritical and morally detestable than concealed, well-groomed homophobia

Your comment assumes that being a Christian is a purely private matter, which is not the case at all based on Christian doctrine. Lay Christians are called upon to live out their religious beliefs every bit as much as the clergy . Moreover, for many orthodox Christians marriage is not just simply a convenient union of people who claim to be "in love" (heterosexual or homosexual). It is an earthly manifestation of the union between Christ and his bride, the church. Weddings are almost always public functions, at least at some level, which means that participation, as a photographer or baker, or even a guest, places a Christian in a distinctly difficult position. One cannot be a true Christian and have a "private" faith. There is no such thing as a private Christian.

The clash that has resulted is in large measure because Christians have generally done a bad job trying to understand homosexual attraction and relating to homosexuals. However, many who support gay marriage simply resort to saying homophobia as if it ends the argument. This isn't about treating people badly - Christians who get this are trying to find the best way to explain why this is such a problem for them. This is not a matter of animus toward gays generally, as none of the people who draw the line at weddings draw it anywhere else when it comes to their gay patrons (except to the extent they draw other lines unrelated to sexual orientation, such as nude photographs, for instance). So I guess ultimately the question for gay marriage supporters is: is there any basis upon which Christians could explain their opposition in such a way that we could come to an understanding that would satisfy both sides? As a Christian who has thought about this much in the recent past, I'd love to see this.

Furhtermore:
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"This isn't about treating people badly"
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That's all it's about. My fellow Christians have, unfortunately, advocated murder, imprisonment, and harm of homosexuals. These are not fringe groups-- the American Family Association and the Catholic Church both spring to mind as groups which have advocated the murder of homosexuals. And I am not talking about some distant time fifty years in the past, I'm talking about as recently as _last_year_.
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That is the explicit goal of the current "religious freedom" movement-- to harm others. To cause harm. It is not an innocuous movement. It is an inherently malicious one, whose only goal is to cause harm and suffering to other people. "Religious freedom" is just weasel wording to make it not sound so horribly shit-awful.

Your response points up to the very problem I am trying to address, apparently unsuccessfully. First, nothing in my comment asks the government to endorse anything. Second, you throw out the term bigotry, as if simply to use the word wins the day. I wouldn't bother making a comment if I didn't care what people think. Nor was I attempting to demand anything from anyone other than a willingness to have a conversation. I've already admitted Christians have done a bad job of this in the past. What remains is the reality that being a Christian is not a private matter - I cannot simply keep my mouth shut because it would violate one of the fundamental commands of the faith to go and make disciples. Even if the government were to outlaw Christianity, I would continue speaking out, risking my life if required in order to spread the gospel message of repentance from sin, belief in Jesus, and salvation through the grace of his atoning act on the cross.

"What remains is the reality that being a Christian is not a private matter - I cannot simply keep my mouth shut because it would violate one of the fundamental commands of the faith to go and make disciples" - your comment.

I thought religion was a personal matter. I also did not know that Christianity "commands" individuals to "go and make disciples". Which verses (or verses) of the bible are you referring to??

On the issue of gay marriage, it seems that the Jews have a better (and more tolerant) position. Whereas their bible condemns homosexuality, the Jews seem to favor homosexuality. Perhaps it is because of the intense (and very public) sexual relationship between David and Jonathan. This is what our local rabbi has written about homosexual lust:

"When Saul told David that he would give him Michal, he went on to tell David that once he married her, he would be the king's son-in-law "in one of the twain." (Verse 21b - King James Version) That phrase is very important. Let's put it into modern English first: "through one of the two." This suggests that he would be Saul's son-in-law through Michal instead of Merab. But notice that the words ‘one of’ are in italics. That means they are not found in the Hebrew text. In fact, they are not even hinted at in the Hebrew text. Adding them completely changed the meaning of the verse. What Saul actually told David was this:

ויאמר שאול אל דוד בשתיים תתחטן בי היום

Vayomer Sha’ul el David bishtayim titchaten bi hayom

And Saul said to David, “Today you will be my son-in-law through two.”

That is, he would be the king's son-in-law twice, through two of Saul's children. With which of Saul's children did David have a covenant? Only three of Saul's children are mentioned: Jonathan, Merab and Michal. David made no covenant with Merab, who married someone else. He was about to make a covenant with Michal. The only other child of Saul with whom David had a covenant was Jonathan. Verse 21 proves that the covenant was a marriage covenant and that Saul recognized (but didn't necessarily approve of) the marriage.

Note the following verses that the King James and other English Bibles have mistranslated in relation to the marriage of David and Jonathan:

"Then Saul's anger burned toward Jonathan, and he said to him, you son of the perversion of rebelliousness! Don't I know that you are choosing the son of Jesse to your own shame and the shame of your mother's ______*?"

*_____ There is no polite English word for the one King Saul used. He used a graphic and vulgar term for genitalia.

"The boy went, and David came up from the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and they bowed three times, and kissed each other, and wept with each other, until David experienced an erection*."

*Hebrew: הגדיל Higdil: became large, was made large

In II Samuel, 1:26 , David expressed his love for the late Jonathan. Please understand that when David referred to the love of women, the only possible love he could be referring to was sexual love. It was considered highly improper for a man to have a platonic friendship with a woman. Men and women usually didn't even speak to each other in public. Even a husband and wife would not speak to each other in the street. (Some Chassidic Jews still observe this custom.) Since David would not have had any platonic relationships with women, he could only have been referring to sexual interaction. This is a further indication of the sexual nature of his relationship with Jonathan, since it would not make sense to compare a platonic relationship with a man to a sexual relationship with a woman. David clearly preferred the love of Jonathan. Nowhere in scripture will you find David expressing such love for a woman. Although he married more than once, and fathered children, he never expressed such love for any of his wives."

There are other examples as well to prove that Judaism approves of sexual unions between males. On lesbianism, it is a totally different story".

Christ raised a categorical divide between Ceasar and God, which is a strong statement against theocracy, explicit or subtle, and a sign that the Gospels are actually (and surprisingly) a form of early modernity. Ceasar has no say on the private lives of free citizens, and this is backed by the Gospel. Moreover,Christ repeatedly strived to tell people to refrain from judging the lives of others, as is shown in the story of the woman caught in adultery. Yes,many functions of our lives are publicly manifested, marriage being one of them, but still, being a Christian is always a matter of one's free conscience and choice--not something to be imposed indiscriminately on anyone in society.
That aside, as a devout Christian myself, I think it's past time we Christians began to mature and cease thinking of our tradition as a stale, static, complete and finished product; it is actually still growing, still in the process of formation, and will always be open to the refreshment of history caused by the Holy Spirit, who creates new social and biological realities, being as He is ahead of humanity and our tolerances. In the course of time, He created several races out of an original one; so with sexual orientation.

Anti-gay discrimination appears to many heterosexuals to be less oppressive than racism because we gay people have decided to make it so. For our entire lives we have oppressed OURSELVES so as to avoid the rejection from families, jobs, and religions. We oppressed OURSELVES so as to avoid violent attacks on public streets and at one time, arrest by the police.
One can not compare the histories of racism and homophobia without taking into account the destructive, corrosive internal struggle that every gay or lesbian person has weathered to even be alive today.
The history of racial minorities in America is brutal and dehumanizing but is a well-documented story.
The awful story of LGBT Americans is rarely told, but the oppression continues to this day. It is not merely a collection of inconveniences and slights that make life for us a bit difficult. Why did 300,000 gay men die in the past two decades from AIDS? Might perhaps the denial of equal marriage rights have something to do with it? Perhaps because the fear of violence by heterosexuals drove gay men into isolated, segregated social settings? Maybe because gay teens had no chance to learn how to date and how to love thanks to rules of heterosexual society?
Anti-gay hatred is "baked into the DNA" of America just as surely as racism is. Ask any teenage boy, or any man who remembers those years. Redress will also be called for- after we stop expressing it in the present day.

It's true that, unlike slavery, gays have traditionally internalized their oppression but it's still not as bad as slavery.

You claim gay people are more promiscuous because they've been denied more stable relationships. Some would call that a bigoted claim and counter-claim that gays can be just as monogamous as heterosexuals of the same gender. In other words, gay men want to have multiple partners because men want to have multiple partners.

The question is not what's worse, but rather, is anti-gay hatred bad enough to require that discrimination against them be given special scrutiny, as racism is. It clearly is, if for no other reason than the fact that it's widely held and active in our culture today.
Homosexual men (like me) can be just as monogamous as any other men, given the same supports: positive adult gay role models during childhood, integrated, open, and supported social lives with homosexual dating during adolescence and young adulthood, and publically celebrated pairings with lifelong support from religious and govenernmental bodies.
Gay men had none of that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Is it any wonder that AIDS spead so quickly and killed over a quarter million men like me?

"Some of my best roommates were gay." That seems to be the point of the introductory anecdote, and it's just as unconvincing as that line of defense usually is.
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I give the author credit for addressing the homophobia versus racism question directly. The fact is, though, that the arguments are entirely unconvincing. The underlying argument, clearly stated at the end of the piece, is "discrimination based on sexual orientation is just not as bad as discrimination based on race". A movie about slavery is cited as support.
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Regardless of its conclusions, this is an extremely weak article unworthy of the Economist. Essentially it boils down to WW defending a bigoted point of view, and defending it poorly.

"First, there is the crucial difference between refusing to do business with someone simply because he is gay and refusing to sign a contract to play a part in a marriage ceremony that violates one's own dearly-held religious convictions about the function and meaning of marriage."
Wow. And here I was thinking that the Arizona law was about ANY business, such as Chick'Fil'A, being able to not serve on the basis of 'you look like a fag'.
Where did they get you from, Sparky?
This is exactly discrimination like 1964.
I think the gays are perfectly happy to make chicken sandwiches for the heterosexuals.
You're kind of a jerk.
I remain.

But Lexington should at least be in America and following America closely. I feel like most of the current stuff is just a overview of what has been on the WaPo and FoxNews that week, without much analysis.

Search the site for the obituary of the previous Lexington. Aside from being suckered into the Iraq war the paper rates him as one of the greatest journalists they have ever employed in their 170 year history. He died in a car crash.

Why don't you go over to Fox news and troll there, rather than sully an intellectual forum with this nonsense. The post had nothing to do with gay sex and everything to do with the intersection of religious freedom with nondiscrimination.

But it's strange, though--allowing Men to marry women has never led to pressure of men marrying their daughters or mothers their sons. Why should allowing men to marry men change any of that?

For the record, I've had lots of gay sex and never had any desire to engage in incest.

So why don't you take your false concern (aka bigotry) off to some nutjob website and have your little argument there.

Not that anyone who claims to have “had lots of gay sex” should ever be accused of prejudice, bigotry or impetuous intolerance of those who, for whatever reason, whether justifiable by any criteria or not, might venture to disagree with them, of course. Not in this “intellectual forum”.

Well there is ther minor detail that gay sex doesn't result in children. And part of the issue with incest is that it seriously increases the probability of genetic disorders manifesting.
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Then there is, depending on the particular form of incest, the pre-existing psychological relationship, e.g. between parent and child, even if both are adults at the time. Not an issue with gay sex either.

It seems to me as if you are implying having a genetically disordered child is morally wrong or "problematic." I guess that is why people SHOULD forcefully sterilized down syndrome patients, right? By the way, there was a ruling in 1923 (Buck v. Bell) that it is not against the Constitution to sterilize disabled persons against their will.

In the case of incest, under what "moral rule" is that couple banned from marriage or sex because of higher chance of having genetically deformed child? So we shouldn't allow down syndrome persons to marry with each other? If we do care about the continuation of healthy human population (reminds of Hitler), shouldn't gay sex be banned BECAUSE it does not produce any child at all?

My point here is not to simply make a counter argument and challenge your point. For one, I am against incest as well. However, my point (or question) is to somewhat agree with agneau22 in that where does this moral standard race stop? At what point is it "normal" or "in common sense" to stop providing rights to every relationship?

Dear author,
You wrote that people who hold some religious ideas very dear (in this case the sanctity of heterosexual marriage) have the right to decide whom they will serve because of these ideas. Now, you might not have thought of the following but one of the reasons that some White South Africans instituted the Apartheid-system had to do with the fact that according to them Noah had cursed his son Ham, whose offspring according to traditional bible interpretation were blacks. Would you argue that people who believe in this interpretation of the bible have the right to discriminate against black people because of their dearly held religious beliefs?

The big shock for me is one that I sense from WW. How did we get to the point where it's political advantageous for an arch-conservative governor to veto a bill expanding freedom of contract? Scalia once opined that gays are no longer an insular minority lacking a political voice. Most people, including myself, disagreed at the time but I think now we've reached that point.

I'm not above infringing on economic contracts in order to enforce moral behavior but I think anti-discrimination laws are often pointless or even counter-productive. If photographers are allowed to openly discriminate, gay couples know which ones to avoid. Boycotts might even put them out of business. But if open discrimination is prohibited, gay couples will end up with substandard photos or the photographers will lie about the reasons why they won't provide services. What is gained?

That's my opinion, too. I do think when the discrimination is so systematic that it affects buying power like in the pre-civil rights act America, it was pretty safe for hotels and restaurants to discriminate because they weren't forgoing a lot of revenue. But a baker who won't serve gays may as well stick to wonder bread.

When the protected class has the same or better income distribution as the general population, the market can take care of this so why not let it? And meanwhile we get to know who the bigots are.

But doesn't it depend on exactly where you are?
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Sure, in a big city (at least in most of the country) there are alternatives. But in some places, when there are only one or two providers within an hour's drive or the local culture is generally intolerant, "systemic discrimination" can occur with just the same impact. That's one of the features of big country: what is true overall may well not be true at all in big chunks of the country.

In an area where there are few providers there are few customers. I just think where the market can do 90% of the work without trying that's better than the government failing to do 100%. Particularly when legal action reinforces people's sense of deliberate collective alienation. I think there's value in letting people change their own minds over time.

I'd agree that there is value in letting people change their own minds. But one way they come to change their minds is when they see something happen that they thought would be a disaster . . . and the world doesn't end after all.
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Consider gay marriage. First it happened in one state -- as, note, the result of a court decision, not a popular vote. And when the entire state did not collapse, and "traditional" (i.e. heterosexual) marriage did not falter, opinions elsewhere started shifting. Rather abruptly. But it had to happen first somewhere without minds changing first. And also, those growing up since the law has been unpopularly changed see no reason at all why we should go back.
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We saw something similar with race relations. Integration happened before opinions changed. Indeed, what forced integration did was change the opinions of those who only grew up after it happened. In a lot of cases, their parents' and grandparents' minds did not change -- and still haven't half a century later. But "people's minds" changed as those minds which didn't change died off, and those who grew up in a different environment replaced them.

Right, I agree. If it is not happening, a court case or referendum can make a big positive difference. If it is happening anyway, and in this case it clearly is, I think it's better to let things happen through civil society than the courts or the statehouses. Bigotry is sufficient punishment for bigotry, let those with shrunken spirits soak in their own acid. No need to throw anything else on them.

I suppose the question is, is it happening? Specifically, is it happening everywhere and fast enough. Consider interracial marriage. In most of the country, it was no longer a big deal . . . which didn't remove the need for Loving v Virginia. Yes, people's minds were changing. But there were also big areas where minds were not changing, or were changing veery slowly.
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I agree that those with shrunken spirits should be left to stew in their own bile. But for the sake of the rest of us, they ought to stew in the bile of knowing that they have lost the war, and there is no going back.

I knew that the some of the Catholic bishops in Africa were doing so. (And getting push back from others there.) But I thought only the only religious leaders in America who were advocating that kind of law in Africa were evangelical Protestant ones.

The policies advocated by Catholic authorities in the USA are not usually as explicitly harmful as the ones advocated in Africa. But they're still maliciously harmful in nature-- and they refuse to openly contradict or protest the ones in Africa.
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And to people whom are actually a member of that oppressed group, Pope Francis' silence on the matter is deafening in its message, just like his blowing off of the pedophile priest problem.

At this point I'm against doing almost anything in order to enforce moral behavior. All it does is drive it underground, much the way widespread condemnation of gay people drove their sexuality underground. A plague on both houses of repression.

10% plus whoever else won't do business with a business that won't do business with our fellow Americans can be a lot. Probably not business-ending but definitely prosperity-reducing. I gave up Cracker Barrel 20 years ago and that had been my choice for a fine night out with my lady for years before.

When will we abandon our frantic search for The Truth? Ignorance is no bad thing. Ignorance produces fear, which is also no bad thing. Fear is a natural function of survival. Grief is no bad thing either. Grief reminds us that we have imagination. Without imagination we could not make sense of our marvelously adequate yet pathetically imperfect sensory perception. We are each one become as though infatuated with the sound of our own voice.

Due to ignorance and fear, we have turned to religion, the belief that Faith itself can lead us to The Truth. Believing that “The Truth will set you free”, we are become obsessed with The Truth, a useful but temporal illusion. When will we, an embarrassing evolutionary anomaly, finally achieve the humility to admit that The Absolute Truth is inaccessible to us?

What we now call ‘scientific knowledge’ will always be defined and therefore limited by what we do not yet know and, more importantly, what we may never fully understand about what we can and do, for now, claim to know. If only we could abandon this pernicious notion that scientific research has nothing to do with creativity. If only we had not so irrevocably divorced work and play.

If only we could but see that scientific research achieves little without a thorough appreciation of art, artifice and imagination. If only we had not so eagerly abandoned our natural playfulness, to venture outside the laboratory, to just go for a walk, think outside the square. Bereft of a healthy sense of humour, life becomes meaninglessness made flesh.

Not only do we too easily forget that we don’t know nearly enough to believe we know it all. Not only can we not see things as we ought to presume, but cannot discern, they really are. But the writer will always depend on the competence of the reader. No two people ever see any one thing in exactly the same way.

The English language imposes on those who were raised and are comfortable in it a certain mindset, a worldview that is peculiar to native English speakers. That’s not to say English speakers are perverse.

All those who are obliged to speak and think in English are obliged to see their world within the context of English vocabulary, grammar and syntax. To say nothing of English history, geography. And the climate.

Every language, by definition, be it verbal, gestural or scientific, imposes a severe limitation on the way a thing or idea may be observed, contemplated, written about and discussed. Not only is there no scientific formula for love or freedom, for the meaning of life. The French will never love the Germans, nor they the Russians. The English will never embrace the Japanese. Nor the Scots the Irish.

But the English will never understand the English either. What we see is certainly what we get, but we cannot see everything. To make sense of the world, as we know it, we all depend on the pretext (my own foreknowledge) and the context of each situation as only I find it and the subtext, the meaning I append to my observation. Which will always differ, every time I pay attention to what looks like the same thing.

My point of view will almost certainly change over time. “Experience is the best teacher.” Where we have been and what we have learned, or at least what we remember, from what we have done will determine to a large extent how you and I perceive things today. But, for sure, next year all that will be different.

Everything we see and hear is coloured by what went before, which includes our entire life experience. If you have just finished enjoying the performance of a stand-up comedian, laughing uproariously at pure silliness, you will have difficulty appreciating the seriousness of a sermon at a funeral. If you switch from a lighthearted piece of entertainment to a political debate, you are more likely to find the earnest expressions of national importance patently ridiculous and laughable than would otherwise be the case.

Furthermore, it matters absolutely whether you were raised in a traditionally Christian environment, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever ethical belief system your parents and significant others espoused during your formative years. Even the most indefatigable atheists have their sad mythology.

Admission to the Christian community is predicated on an admission of personal guilt: “If you confess your sin He is faithful and just to forgive you your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.”
Admission to the Jewish community is wholly predicated on the circumstance of birth. (The Bar Mitzva is not an initiation but a confirmation of membership, a natural progression that has nothing to do with a moral choice or admission of personal guilt, requiring redemption by the symbolism of sacrificial blood.)

To be a Jew is to be informed by communal responsibility, not personal guilt. To be a Christian is to be informed by self-denial, abandonment of all self-respect and abject submission to a personal epiphany.

While Christian perception is deeply affected by a sense of personal guilt, Jewish perception is defined by unequivocal support of the community. “No Jew ever died of poverty, but of pride.” The community will always provide, no matter what sort of scoundrel you are. Christians are traditionally raised to always be mindful of correct behaviour, lest you will be surely condemned, by the whole community before God.

The historical predominance of Jewish intellectuals, philosophers and inventors may be due in large part to the intellectually liberating absence of personal guilt (original sin) in a traditional Jewish upbringing. Jewish exceptionalism may therefore be defined by, meaning due to, Christian exceptionalism. And vice versa. A symbiotic relationship – not unlike Zionism and Islamic Jihad. The one sustaining the other.

If you find these words ‘speak to your condition’, that’s not because I have spoken The Truth. It’s because you have recognized something ‘between the lines’, something that is not intrinsically there, something I, without benefit of your experience, simply cannot know anything about. That is how we make sense, for now, of what we see and hear, which tomorrow will likely make little sense at all.

When what people think of you stays in their head, that may be true to a large extent. But it doesn't now, does it? Frequently it impacts how you get treated, which has implications for your business dealings (and even your life). Just ask any businessman whether his cares about his company's reputation!

Q: Again, you're a practicing Catholic, right?
A: Yes.
Q: And as such, you adhere to the teaching that gay marriage is wrong, and thus you shouldn't be forced to serve a coffee to a gay person, right?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you masturbate?
A: Uh.
Q: Have you ever had sex outside of marriage?
A: Uh.
Q: Do you have sex with your wife that is not for having babies?
A: Uh.
Q: In fact, you've had a vasectomy, right?
A: Uh.
Q: And your daughter uses the pill, right?
A: Uh.
Q: Did you stone her when she talked back to you?
A: Uh.
Q: And your wife has given you a blowjob, right?
A: Uh.
Q: But that's a no-no in the Bible, isn't it?
A: Uh.
Q: I see you're wearing a suit that's 98% cotton and 2% wool. You realize the Bible bans that, right?
A: Uh . . .

Still - if you use "Jesus hates the gays" as your defence, you have to show, under the law, a sincere religious belief. The other side is fully entitled to explore that.

These people are cafeteria Christians. They flout whatever doctrine of their brand of Christianity left right and centre--on birth control, abortion, divorce, you name it--but somehow they get pious and observant when it comes to the gays.

Because, you know, the Bible says "if you bring a glass of water to a gay person, you surely must go to hell."

The Church tolerates civil divorce. A Catholic remarriage is an impossibility though. A Catholic can marry a Jew with a dispensation from the bishop. Catholics don't stone. I can think of theologically permissible uses for BJs. The Mosaic Law has linen restrictions. The Catholic Church does not follow Mosaic Law. What's the point of 2% wool? Might was well get an all-cotton suit. Anyway, the rest of the questions are legit.

There is no law that requires one to adhere to every single word of the bible in order to legitimately claim to be a Christian. Different sects and denominations of Christianity focus on and adhere to different parts of the bible, as do different individuals. There is no requirement, legal, moral or social that in order to call oneself a Christian, one MUST embrace every single word of the Bible. Sorry, but your attempt to redefine Christianity according to your own rigid definition (and bias) would not stand up in a court of law. Any half-way decent lawyer could easily make mince meat of you and your interrogation.

Oh, you think? "I am a pious Christian who strictly obeys NOT ONLY the 'don't lie with men thing' but that scarcely-known edict 'also don't serve them in their restaurant' rule, but even though the Bible is also clear on premarital sex, masturbation, interfaith marriage, and a whole host of things, I'm ignoring those. THE ONLY Christian belief I have that matters is the one on gay people."

Try and have that one hold up in court. All it really means is "I'm a homophobic bigot and I've now found an excuse that I don't apply in ANY OTHER ASPECT of my life."

Let me also point out - the Biblical prohibition on gay conduct is a personal one. I.e. "YOU may not have gay sex." It doesn't say anything about how you treat gay people.

Contrast to the affirmative mandates in the Bible on dealing with others: An affirmative mandate to stone adulterers, or to beat/put to death rebellious children.

Surely if one is claiming theological sincerity to one's refusal of service to gay people, the only think you can claim is "I can't have gay sex." Otherwise you should be kicking children who talk back to their parents out of your restaurant too.

How about you try to address the substance? How can someone claim a sincerely-held religious belief bars them from providing a service to gay people, while ignoring EVERY OTHER religious mandate from their respective holy book? Why is that one mandate so very important? Catholicism is crystal clear on divorce--far more clear than on gay issues. If you're a sincere Catholic such that you believe you cannot in good conscience even bring a coffee to a gay person, why would you bring one to someone who was divorced?